


the road to the stars

by shell-heads (chocopies)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Family Feels, Fluff, M/M, Natasha and Tony are pas de deux partners, ballet dancer!tony, ft. military dad nick fury and proud aunt peggy/jarvis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 14:30:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17603102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocopies/pseuds/shell-heads
Summary: Tony is seven years old when he sees the ballet for the first time and meets his future pas de deux partner.His father is invited to sweet-talk politicians into a new weapons deal and explain his latest idea for their program, and his mom goes to catch up with old friends she hasn't seen in years, but Tony goes because his mom had smiled down at him and told him he would love it.His mom's never wrong.-In which boy genius Tony Stark meets girl wonder Natasha Romanoff at the ballet, and they fit their broken little pieces together to make something beautiful on the dance floor.Steve? He's just a dumb, awful, chaotic, extremely supportive older brother that really should just shut up and admit he likes Tony a lot more than he pretends, because Natasha only has five people in the world she likes; it only makes sense her two favorites would fall in love with one another.They always were a little slow, though.





	the road to the stars

**Author's Note:**

> anon: this isn't a request (it is) but how would you feel about writing ballet stony because i can't get it out of my head

Tony is seven years old when he sees the ballet for the first time and meets his future pas de deux partner.    
  
His father is invited to sweet-talk politicians into a new weapons deal and explain his latest idea for their program, and his mom goes to catch up with old friends she hasn't seen in years, but Tony goes because his mom had smiled down at him and told him he would love it.    
  
His mom's never wrong.    
  
He sits by himself at the far end of their private box when the adults begin to chit-chat and picks at the nonexistent dust on his pants while he waits for the show to start, and his father approaches with an intimidatingly fierce man and a smaller, will o' wisp of a girl, blank faced and quiet.   
  
"Well, Tony, it looks like you've got a pretty date tonight to entertain," Howard says jovially, his smile like stretched plastic. "This here is Natasha, and she's getting pretty tired of standing around listening to all us grown-ups talk, so we figured you two could stick together!"    
  
Be a good little boy and make her happy, his eyes warn Tony, or else.    
  
And because he can do nothing else, Tony jerks a stiff nod, eyes warily falling on whom he assumes is her own dad before he opens his face up with a practiced smile and greets her.    
  
She stares at him as the adults walk away, sharp eyes stark against her unfeeling face, and finally deigns his smile and gesturing arm with a thick, accented, "Fake."    
  
"I'm sorry?" Tony stumbles, his smile falling out of surprise as she takes the seat next to him and turns to face him perfunctorily.    
  
"Fake," she repeats, and even though there's no emotions coloring her words, Tony can somehow tell she's irritated.    
  
His smile, Tony realizes, and his tongue twists up in his mouth awkwardly as he scrambles for what to answer that with.    
  
"I'm sorry," Tony settles on finally, fidgeting in his chair and peeking at her profile while she sits completely still.    
  
"Sorry?" she echoes, a trick of the light making her eyes seem wider for a split-second.    
  
"For-being fake," Tony says with a wobble of his lips into a more genuine smile, shrugging helplessly and searching for an honesty he rarely gets to employ. "People don't usually...want real."    
  
"No," she says after a long pause, studying him at length and seemingly finding whatever it is she was looking for. "They don't."    
  
After another long moment that leaves Tony's skin itching with thousands of anxious little bugs under his skin, she reaches a hand out to him, the blank slate of her face softer than before.    
  
"Natasha," she introduces, Tony blinking rapidly to understand what's going on before a slow, understanding smile crosses his face.    
  
"Tony," he responds, shaking her hand and laughing under his breath when her handshake is firm as a stone.    
  
The shape of her eyes manages to ask her question without her mouth ever opening, but Tony hears it all the same and sends her a quick grin.    
  
"Nothing," he says, pleasantly surprised when her lips tilt down into a tiny frown, dark brows furrowing.    
  
"Lie," she says, and Tony shakes his head easily.    
  
"Good one," he tells her, and the frown dissipates to allow an accepting nod.    
  
Around them, the noise in the hall lowers to a hush as the curtains move, and Tony finds himself watching in awe as dancers twist and leap across the stage like beautiful ribbons, their moves straight out of a fairy tale; when he looks up at a particularly wonderful moment to share a look with Natasha, he's surprised to see a matching, if much smaller grin on her tiny face.    
  
"You like ballet?" he asks, the soft dip of her chin lighting his face up.    
  
"In Russia, we all do ballet," she informs him under the sound of the music, and she glances quickly at him before clearing her throat delicately. "Do you...want to know?"    
  
Understanding immediately what she's offering, Tony scoots closer to her seat with wide, twinkling eyes. Her quiet, accented whispers accompany each piece as she describes the story and techniques to him, and Tony's smile grows so wide he thinks it must be infectious, some of its light reflecting in the upturn of Natasha's lips when she speaks.    
  
By the time the show has ended, Tony's heart is beating so fast from joy he thinks it might just burst, listening eagerly to Natasha's stories of her favorite programs, her old ballet school in Russia, the strength it takes to be such an exquisite dancer.    
  
His father and mom are still heavy in discussion with the other adults, so they have a precious whole hour to whisper with each other until they all disengage, and Tony's dad comes step-in-step with the man who was with Natasha earlier, halting their conversation.    
  
Pulling on a complex mask of disinterest and engagement, Tony closes his mouth the second his father falls within earshot, a rush of cold air sweeping over him. Natasha turns her head automatically in the easiest show of emotion Tony's seen all night before her face clears, her hands slipping around Tony's arm in a casual embrace, a perfect smile painting her lips the same way it had Tony's a few hours ago.    
  
"Natasha," the dark-skinned man says when he steps in front of them, a single brow raised at the loop of their arms and her smile. "I see you're getting along with Tony."    
  
"He is a good companion," she agrees, watching with Tony as Howard's shoulders loosen the slightest stretch before turning to Tony once more.    
  
"You should come to school," Natasha informs him, the tilt of her lips less unfeeling when their eyes meet away from the gazes behind them. "I go to De La Fontaine, for ballet. You come, you learn, we dance together. Adults talk together when we dance, yes?"    
  
She directs this last part with a bright smile at the two guardians, her English more and more Russian with every word-she's doing it on purpose, Tony realizes, thickening it so that she seems all the more foreign and darling to Howard.    
  
Howard, who'd looked increasingly irritated behind his veneer until Natasha had spun around and given them a continued reason to meet up for whatever hush-hush talk they'd been occupied with all night.    
  
"Great idea, Miss Romanoff," Howard answers slowly, observing Tony with a pensive look before smiling at her. "Maria's always telling me we need to expand into more artistic interests, after all, and it'd be rude to refuse such a pretty little lady."    
  
Giggling, Natasha curtsies and plays right into the angle she's created for herself, Howard Stark falling right into the palm of her tiny hands from his greed.    
  
Maria fights tooth and nail to avoid boarding school; it takes a single reminder of little Natasha Romanoff and Nick Fury to make him void the paperwork, and Tony goes to a perfect little gentleman's school within New York's borders. When he's finished ignoring everyone there to study by himself, Jarvis comes himself to take him to dance, and Tony blossoms to life.    
  
"Nice to see you," Natasha says with a small quirk of her lips the first day Tony pulls in, her red hair a sharp contrast against the white of her tutu.    
  
"Nice to be here," Tony replies quietly, mirroring her smile and following her into the classroom.   
  
Natasha becomes his first friend, and he becomes hers.    
  
They're both young, a little broken, and too smart for their own good. It's perfect.    
  
_

  
  
"Carter told me about you," Natasha tells him that first day in the middle of splits, pleased by his flexibility and deeming him a decent enough partner.   
  
"Aunt Peggy?" Tony asks with his hands stretched out before him, surprised.    
  
"She said I would like you," Natasha continues, switching stretches. "She's a very...capable woman."    
  
"You mean she kicks ass," Tony grins proudly, laughing at the twitch of her lips it incites.    
  
"Very strong and smart," Natasha agrees, a spark in her eye that looks all too similar to the one in Tony's when he thinks of Aunt Peggy.    
  
"Where'd you meet her?" Tony asks curiously. "You don't go everywhere with your dad, do you?"    
  
"I have no father," Natasha answers. "She gave me to Fury after I came to America."   
  
She isn't looking at him, but Tony knows without asking that this is something important. The air around her isn't the cold warning one would expect from the crisp delivery of her words, and yet it tells Tony all he needs to know.    
  
She doesn't talk about this-but if he asked, she would.    
  
"Do you have any siblings, then?" Tony asks instead, twisting his torso the other way and observing the wall idly. "I'm an only kid."    
  
A long pause, and then, "I have-a Steve."    
  
"A Steve?" Tony repeats, brows wrinkling. "The heck is a Steve? Is that your dog's name?"    
  
Lips twitching again, Natasha hums and pretends to think about it as she smiles to herself mischievously.    
  
"Close enough," she says.    
  
(It takes him asking Aunt Peggy if she's seen Natasha's dog after stories and stories two months later to learn that Steve is, in fact, not a dog.)   
  
Aunt Peggy laughs for an entire five minutes. The next time Tony sees Nat, her eyes are twinkling in bright eyed amusement, and it throws him off just enough that he loses his train of thought.    
  
"Steve thinks you're a bully," she tells him, her accented voice wobbling with humor in a way he's never heard before. "He said you are very, very bad person, and he doesn't like you."    
  
"It's not my fault!" Tony protests automatically, throwing his hands in the air. "You told me he was a dog!"    
  
"I said he was close," she says as her shoulders shake, enjoying his emotional turmoil.    
  
"You told me he ate Fury's paperwork because he wouldn't pay attention to him!" Tony waves his hands haphazardly in the air to make his point, eyes wide.    
  
"He did," Natasha says, her lips trembling further when Tony, quite frankly, loses his mind as the sheer insanity of her stories finally processes through.    
  
"You guys are crazy," Tony tells her as he throws his backpack in the student lockers, shaking his head and twitching all over with the desire to shake something apart. "Crazy!"    
  
"I'll make sure Steve knows that too," she replies while walking past him into the class, and Tony gawps at her unattractively.    
  
"You're gonna make him think I'm a jerk," Tony yells exasperatedly when he chases after her.   
  
(Steve, for many years, does in fact think he is an awful jerk-but then he falls head over heels for Tony, so it pans out.)   
  
_

  
  
They become the academy representatives, effortless beauty and grace on the floor in a way that only true prodigies are. They dance, and they argue, and at every polished little soiree they go to, they find each other before the doors even open. It’s a well-known secret that Tony Stark and Natasha Romanoff are society’s darlings, with their precious ballet performances and genius intellect and beautiful manners, and at some point Howard stops hounding Tony for dancing and starts realizing that having a son who earns national acclaim for technological advancements and his girly side-hobby makes him look twice as good to investors. Seeing his face purple for the first time when Tony scores him a contract with tights and glitter is easily one of the most satisfying moments of his life.    
  
Steve, of course, never comes to any parties, or dinners, or fundraisers, or competitions, because Fury would rather stab himself in the thigh than let a heart patient with a thousand health conditions come to an event and shoot off like a loose cannon, but he never lets that stop him from supporting Natasha (and Tony) in any of their competitions.    
  
“What’s that?” Tony asks with an inquisitive twinkle in his eyes when Nat walks into the participant waiting room with a little tupperware container, her face slightly bewildered.    
  
“Strawberries,” she says slowly, slipping into the chair next to him with a strange twist to her mouth.    
  
“Strawberries?” Tony repeats, blinking rapidly before eyeing the container with wariness. “Are they poisoned?”   
  
“What? No,” Natasha uncharacteristically flusters, her fingers tight around the container before she sighs and shoves it at him with a pink tint to her cheeks. “Steve made them. For us.”   
  
“Made them?” he mouths to himself before opening the lid and smiling immediately at the sight that meets him.    
  
“Chocolate strawberries!” Tony cheers, eyes widening when he notices the delicate cursive N’s and T’s in white against the milk chocolate shell, “Nat, I have strawberries!”   
  
“I know,” she sighs, the fond lilt to her words rendering her eye roll useless. “I said it was for both of us, didn’t I?”   
  
“But-he hates me,” Tony points out, carefully picking up one by the leaves and admiring the smooth loops of white chocolate with soft awe, Natasha quirking her lips at him and reaching for one of her own.    
  
“But I like you,” she responds, staring at the fruit ruefully. “And he...likes me.”   
  
The way she says it makes Tony look up then, strawberry forgotten, because she says it the way Tony does.   
  
Like she never thought she’d ever say that out loud and have it be true; like someone honestly, genuinely cares about her and the things she likes, and it's baffling.   
  
“Obviously,” Tony says matter-of-factly, grinning at the startled swish of her hair over her shoulder when she turns to look at him. “He might think I’m a big jerk, but at least he has good taste.”   
  
Huffing out a laugh, she leans forward to pinch at his cheek roughly and shoves her strawberry into his mouth, his offended squawk muffled by her hands.    
  
“Come on, Stark,” Natasha says, a soft smile lighting up her entire face and leaving Tony momentarily speechless. “Let’s go win this thing."    
  
"As you wish, milady," he promises once he catches his breath, and if he snatches one more strawberry with a looped T to smile at before biting delicately, she doesn't say a word.    
  
Steve never makes it to any of their events, but every competition, without fail, Natasha brings in a container of something preciously delicious, and they celebrate a performance well done with sticky fingers and leaping hearts.    
  
When she comes home with pins to her chest and medals around her neck, she smiles to herself as Steve grins down at the miniscule crumbs that litter the bottom of their tupperware, his hands cradling the thank you notes from Tony like pure gold.    
  
"Did you ruin them?" he asks every time, the infectious elation in his bright blue eyes sending warmth down to her numb toes, and she takes her winnings in hand to delicately hang them over his frail chest.    
  
"Always," she answers.    
  
Fury never asks about all the medals and pins that hang up high in Steve's room, but she knows that behind his mug of hot coffee when Steve chatters on about his favorite trophies is a hidden smile.    
  
Strange, how all these things don't bother her the way they used to.    
  
Distantly realizing she's smiling herself at him, Natasha shakes herself imperceptibly and thinks of Tony-Tony, who takes her hands like they're stars and smiles as wide as the horizon with every treat Steve makes, Tony whose mask matches hers so well, Tony who makes her blood pump with passion-and how perhaps, just perhaps....   
  
....he's a lot more than a pas de deux partner, the way Steve is a lot more than a bedraggled orphan forced to live in the same house as her.    
  
She wonders if Tony would bloom under Steve's sun the way she does, and lets herself smile again.    
  
Maybe someday, when Steve stops pretending he doesn't glow with joy at all the hastily scrawled notes shoved into every empty plastic container she brings home, she'll find out.    
  
_

  
  
Tony's already graduated highschool at fourteen, and he knows he’s going to MIT for college. Nat’s taking the usual route even though she’s smart enough to skip her own way through, which means he’ll be leaving her behind when he goes off to Boston. Though they’ll miss each other, neither of them are upset-it’s what he wants, what he needs, the feel of metal under his hands and code blinking away on a computer screen, and they both know that-but he sees the challenge in Natasha’s eyes when the principal brings it up to them, and he can't not take that spark head on with a grin of his own.    
  
They were made to be spectacular, after all.    
  
He gets a special exception allowing his first year to be entirely online, and it's easy enough when he reminds MIT he walked in with two years of undergrad credit in the first place. Aunt Peggy swears up and down she and Uncle Danny are coming, his mom very proudly tells all her society friends about her son’s newest competition, and Jarvis smiles softly when he asks what channel it’ll be on.    
  
"Ana said she'd quite like to see it herself," Jarvis tells him, and Tony blinks back tears at the thought of Ana and Jarvis sitting together to watch him, her withering hands clasped in his as she roots for Tony the way she used to before the beeping monitors and IV drips.   
  
"Channel 10," he rasps, clearing his thick throat and looking away. "It'll be on channel 10."    
  
It's months of practice and repetition-runs and stretches and routines that burn themselves into their muscles, months of collapsing onto the floor and talking technique over tupperware filled with food Steve's made sure to pack for them, days on nights where all they think and breathe is the stretch of their muscles in liquid grace over the air. They head to Switzerland with blood rushing in excitement for the first real group of competitors they’ve ever met, and the sheer energy sparking off their fingertips could power a factory; this time, though, Tony can feel something different in the air.   
  
“Steve is watching,” Nat tells him when he raises a brow at her restless feet and twitchy fingers, and Tony nearly twists his ankle to peek out the curtains and find the elusive tornado of a foster brother that is Steve Rogers.    
  
“Holy shit, Nat!” Tony exclaims, scanning the crowd for her family and jumping on his toes. “Fury let him out?! I thought he had a surgery last week?”    
  
“Erskine’s procedure worked,” Natasha shrugs, and Tony rolls his eyes at her nonchalant attitude, head still stuck between the backstage curtains.    
  
“Nat, you lying wench, you totally cried when he got off the operating table. How the fuck could you not tell me any of this?” Tony demands, vibrating from head to toe with newfound energy. “This is fucking awesome! Wild Rogers is finally free from heart attacks and gets let out, and you don’t tell me? Shit!”   
  
Giving up when the dim lighting fails his searching eyes, Tony turns on his heels sharply and picks Natasha up from around the waist, ignoring her irritated “Tony!” to spin her around and hold her gaze.    
  
“Nat,” he says with a wide, wide, beam, “we’re gonna win this competition. We are going to walk out there and destroy it, do you hear me? I will accept nothing less than first place to celebrate your brother’s surgery, Miss Romanoff, and I have no doubt you will rise to the occasion.”    
  
Smiling despite herself, she rolls her eyes and pokes his forehead, her fingers tight on his shoulders.    
  
"That's been the plan since the beginning," she smirks, Tony's cheeks stretching ever so wider as he twirls her around again and again, his laugh echoing around them.    
  
Hundreds of feet away, Steve bounces his leg up and down as he scans the daintily designed programme, biting his lip as Fury catches the attention of their companions to direct them to their seats.    
  
"Steve, hello!"  Peggy exclaims, surprised to see him out and about. "I thought you were still in recovery from the procedure?"    
  
"Kinda," he shrugs, quirking a sheepish grin at her. "I didn't wanna miss this though, so I blackmailed him into letting me come."    
  
"Is that so?" Peggy asks amusedly, turning to Fury and holding back a laugh as he ignores the both of them to read the programme. "Well done, darling. You used the 'last competition' card, I suppose."    
  
"And the 'I've never left the house' card," he agrees, snickering as Fury twitches beside him with mild irritation.    
  
"Well, it's fantastic you're here," Peggy declares, sitting herself next to him with a wide smile. "I know Natasha is pleased as punch you're finally able to come, and I'm sure Tony will be ecstatic when he finds out."    
  
"Tony?" Steve asks confusedly, brows furrowing. "Why would Tony care?"    
  
"Of course he'd care, love, he's only been looking forward to meeting you for seven years," Peggy laughs, her pearly earrings gleaming in the dim light as Steve stares, caught off guard. "If he weren't so worried you'd throw a pie at him on sight for that silly joke when you were kids, he'd have barged into your house ages ago."    
  
"Well, he shouldn't have been so-" Steve starts, scowling to the side when he's cut off by a soft elbow to his ribs from Fury.    
  
"Rude? Callous? You're not the first to think of him that way, sweetheart, and you certainly won't be the last, I'm afraid," Peggy replies knowingly, patting his hand on top of the armrest. "Truly, anything he said about you was never meant to be negative, though I suppose Natasha's wicked habit of teasing you both has made that a bit difficult to see."    
  
"He said I was a crazy maniac who needed a straitjacket," Steve protests, his blue eyes electric.    
  
"To be fair, you did smash a printer just to pull out the destroyed ink and paint stains into the floor with it," Peggy responds with an arch brow, and Steve falters.    
  
"Well, that's," he mumbles, picking at his sleeves and wincing. "I was a kid."    
  
"Oh, darling, you still are," Peggy teases, pinching his cheeks gently. "And so is he. You're old enough now to think of yourself as much more dignified than that, though, am I right?"    
  
"I guess," he mumbles, his answer muffled by his scarf as he sinks down into his seat,  embarrassed.    
  
"It's starting," Nick interrupts, folding the competition programme closed as the lights dim completely and the speakers crackle to life.    
  
Straightening out in his seat to see over the tall woman before him, Steve checks the programme again for Nat's slot and reminds himself it's over halfway through the competition, resigning himself to watching strangers bounce around stage for another hour and a half.

“Steve,” Fury murmurs, knocking his foot against the blond’s to catch his attention. 

Looking down automatically, Steve swears under his breath when he realizes the fruit salad he prepared for Nat and Tony is still under his seat instead of in their waiting room, having completely forgotten that Nat had asked him to bring them during the show so they wouldn’t starve while the rest of the dancers went ahead. 

“You’ll have to go during the intermission,” Fury tells him, Steve sighing and reluctantly nodding in agreement. 

“The dressing rooms are around the building to the left, right?” Steve asks, and Fury lifts the pamphlet up once again, the back page with its neatly labelled entrances obvious even in the faint lighting. “Got it.”

Even more impatient now for the dances to be done with, Steve jigs his knee up and down the entire time, smiling sheepishly at Peggy when she sends him an arched eyebrow and breathing out in relief when she simply pinches his leg teasingly. 

“I’m off, bye,” Steve blurts as soon as the speakers crackle to open the room for intermission, Fury sighing as he’s off like a shot with the fruit salad. 

“Dressing rooms, dressing rooms,” Steve mutters to himself as he walks around the building and finds the sign pointing participants to a back door for the dressing rooms. “Finally!”

Happy to stretch his legs in the brisk winter air despite his annoying mistake earlier, Steve opens the door easily enough and almost has a heart attack at the hustle and bustle of people moving around as costumes are changed into and out of, glad Fury isn’t with him to nag about manners and his health.

“Um, hello,” Steve tries, catching the attention of a staff member with a clipboard rushing dancers along with practiced calm, “can I ask where the people who haven’t danced yet are?”

“Family member?” the staff member asks, eyes sharp, and Steve straightens up, scowl ready at his lips in case they try to kick him out. “Go straight for three feet and make the first right.”

Startled, Steve nods, throwing out a “Thank you!” behind himself as he walks through the swarm of people, hopping for a moment as he trips over someone’s throwaway shoes before searching for the dressing rooms labelled R through S. 

Spotting the name Romanoff halfway down the list printed down a side, Steve shifts the bag of fruit salad in his hands and knocks on the door impatiently, his fist frozen in the air when someone answers him only one knock in. 

“Yeah?” the damnably hot boy in front of him asks, all tousled curls and perfect white teeth on warm tan skin, and Steve clears his throat. 

“Natasha Romanoff?” he asks quickly, wincing internally at how awkward and put-off he sounds, brows furrowing in confusion as cute boy scans him up and down and whistles lowly. 

“Hey, Nat, there’s a cute guy at the door for you,” hot boy yells, a hot flush rising to Steve’s cheeks immediately as he processes being called “cute” by someone hotter than the goddamned sun; he knows he’s gotten taller over the past few months with Erskine’s work, and he’s definitely filling out his clothes more, but he’s definitely still not anything worth flirting with. 

Almost as an afterthought, he realizes hot boy just called his sister “Nat”.

“What?” Steve hears Natasha say, her face popping up as the door opens wider, and he waves awkwardly when she says, “Steve?”

“Steve?” hot boy repeats, his eyes blowing wide open as they flick wildly between the both of them, “Steve-Steve? Steve Rogers Steve?”

“Yes, Tony,” Nat rolls her eyes, currently ignoring the sounds of two delicate minds breaking apart in shock as her brother and best friend gape at each other, Steve’s hands going so loose in surprise he almost drops the salad. 

“Tony? Tony Stark?” Steve asks, an echo of Tony’s earlier words, studying hot boy even more carefully as a litany of curses blares on full blast in his head-most of them some form of ‘oh no he’s hot’-and Nat sighs. 

“Tony, Steve,” she introduces, waving between the two of them at one another. “Steve, Tony.”

“Holy shit,” Tony Stark, the rudest boy in all of the world says, unfortunately just as good looking now as he was a moment before. “Nat, you never told he was fucking cute.”

Mouth falling open as he tries to come up with a response to that, Steve’s lips flap uselessly while blood rushes to his face, Nat’s smarmy little smile only making him angry.

It says a lot about his life that the first time someone extremely attractive ever hits on him, it’s the kid who he promised to send to the hospital on sight for calling him psychotic. 

“I brought the salad,” Steve says tightly instead, desperately trying to pull himself together, and Tony Stark blinks at him with his stupidly big brown eyes, the grin that spreads across his face like a kick to the gut. 

“You didn’t forget!” he cheers, grabbing the bag from Steve to peer into it happily. “I thought you weren’t doing it anymore when she said she didn’t have anything to eat on her today!”

“No, I-” Tongue twisting inside his mouth as he tries not to stare and formulate a response to the emotions that incites in him at the same time, Steve clears his throat again and shifts his feet. “I just forgot to give it to her earlier, is all.”

“Hey, you threw in blueberries,” Tony notices, a frown overtaking his lips that sets Steve on edge, ready to snap something derogatory at him if he complains. “I thought you were super allergic? Are you okay?”

Stunned for what seems like the hundredth time since he met Tony Stark for the first time two minutes ago, Steve manages, “Not-not anymore. The procedure, it helped with a lot of my allergies.”

“That’s awesome!” Tony beams, bag forgotten as he looks up at Steve from under his fringe of hair like some kind of cupid. “Hey, congratulations on the surgery and procedure, by the way! I didn’t send flowers or a fruit basket because I figured you were still allergic, but I sent you some paint and brushes.”

“But...Miss Peggy is the only one who gave me art supplies,” Steve falters, thinking of the beautiful hand-carved wooden case she’d brought him post-operation in the hospital, filled to the brim with every color of the rainbow and a plethora of brushes for him to dip into.  

“No one says no to Aunt Peggy,” Tony points out, reminding Steve of their apparently one-sided rivalry, Nat pretending she isn’t enjoying this immensely as Steve looks to her futilely for help out of the fumbling mess he’s gotten himself into. 

“Oh,” is all Steve can say, his mouth dry, the distant sound of the curtains drawing open as the MC announces the end of the intermission faint under the buzzing in his ears. “They’re-really nice. Thanks.”

“You deserve it,” Tony goddamned Stark says with a shrug like it’s a fact, and Steve really has no idea what he’s going to do with all of this information. “Thanks for the salad, we were starving.”

“You’re welcome,” Steve answers blankly, aware of the faint tingling in his hands and feet as Tony grins again at him with that same golden bright curve of lips. 

“Hey, Stark! They have to ask you something about your costume,” a voice calls from inside the room, and Tony turns around with a loud, “Coming!”

“Sorry, I gotta go,” Tony says with an apologetic tilt to his stupidly pretty mouth, and Steve nods sharply to cover up the fact that he’s lost his voice. “Seriously though, congrats, and thanks for dropping this off.”

Spinning on his heel with the salad in hand to deal with whatever costume issue has risen, Tony’s gone before Steve can even blink, Nat laughing at him with her eyes as he stands there dumbly. 

“Thank you for the salad,” she echoes, the pink bow of her lips wicked with mischief while the door closes on him. 

By the time he’s left the dressing rooms and circled the building four times in a blurry haze, Steve realizes the flush still hasn’t left his cheeks, and he walks to his seat with his hands shaking. 

“Are you alright, darling?” Peggy asks him worriedly, and he nods.

“Cold outside,” he mutters in answer, earning a dark look as Fury wraps the scarf Steve had wrestled off earlier back around his neck. 

By the time Natasha and Tony appear on stage, he’s vaguely aware he’s wholly, unerringly, screwed. 

“He gets better and better every time I look at him,” Peggy swears, wiping a tear from her eyes as her husband laughs and squeezes her hand. “He’s so beautiful I can hardly stand it.”

Staring at the way Tony leaps across stage, lifting Nat with his lithe muscles and unfairly tight costume, his cheeks stained red as sweat pours down his beaming face under the hot lights focused on them, Steve presses a hand to his cacophonous chest and trembles. 

“Oh god,” he whispers feelingly, his entire body tingling again in bright, glimmering waves from his head to his very toes, “I’m so fucked.”

Steve thinks he might know just the feeling. 

_

 

It takes ten years for him to do something about it. 

Ten years of emailing Tony and sending him care packages, ten years of letters and unspoken words, ten years of Natasha quirking that same damn knowing smile at him, ten years of filling out his clothes and going to school and becoming a person he’d never thought he’d get to be while Tony builds machines beyond his comprehension and visits every break without fail-ten years of thinking how pretty Tony’s smile would be if he got to kiss it off his mouth, of wondering how it would feel to wrap his arms around his hips and lift him just to see his laugh, of falling more and more in love than any person ever knows what to do with. 

Ten years, and he finds the old cassette with their last competition on it, and Tony’s soft beam when he remembers meeting Steve for the first time makes him lean over and press his lips to that soft pink bow to taste it, spun sugar and fireworks on his tongue as he laces their fingers together on the floor.

When Steve leans back, his heart a never-ending thunderstorm quaking in his ribs, Tony looks at him with his bright eyes, mouth wet as he says, “Took you long enough,” and kisses him back like the stars are in his lungs.

**Author's Note:**

> i was so late with this fic that i cut half the stony content out, but i think i might just make a sequel of sorts that really goes into instead, so fingers crossed i actually do it!!!!! 
> 
> as always, you guys are welcome to leave me constructive criticism, a comment, or visit me on tumblr [@shell-heads](http://www.shell-heads.tumblr.com)!!! have a lovely day everyone 🌺🌈💖


End file.
